physics

The fifteenth essay in the series "Creators" is dedicated to Georgy Gamov, an outstanding physicist and cosmologist, professor at George Washington University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, who made a huge contribution to nuclear physics, cosmology and theoretical biology. Together with RASA (Russian-American Science Association) T-invariant continues publishing the series of biographical essays "Creators".
on 30 November 2024, the five-year agreement between the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Russian Federation will end. T-invariant recalls how dramatically CERN and Russia have severed their relations over the past years and publishes an interview with a witness to these events - scientist Andrei Seriakov from St Petersburg.
The harsh sentence for the scientist is not an exception to the rule, but the current norm. It was not by chance that the prosecution asked to give Shiplyuk the maximum possible 20 years: the cruelty of the repressions is directly related to the war in Ukraine. Moreover, in the summer of 2023, amendments were made according to which life imprisonment can be given for high treason.
The full-fledged work of the YouTube video service in Russia is gradually ceasing. What do scientists, leading million-viewer channels, and bloggers who popularize science think about this? Astrophysicists Sergey Popov, Vladimir Surdin, historian Mikhail Rodin, popularizers of science Vlad Goncharuk, Evgenia Timonova and Vitaly Egorov answer.
The FSB has been persecuting members of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sergey Abramov and Oleg Kabov for several years now. Their criminal cases are so unprecedented that the American Physical Society, one of the largest in the scientific world, is worried about their fate. Its representatives are sending letters to the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
In Novosibirsk, they are considering the criminal case of corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Oleg Kabov, which was initiated by the FSB. This is the first case in Russia when a scientist is being tried for his allegedly unsatisfactory work, and scientific and technical expertise forms the basic part of the charge. The very fact that you can go to prison for poorly conducted research is a new page both in the history of Russian science and in the history of domestic jurisprudence. Kabov's case is a challenge to the entire scientific community. It will show whether science in Russia can defend its right to exist.
New detainees in the case of Siberian scientists from the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ITPM) named after. Christianovich of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, accused of treason, was scientist Vladislav Galkin from Tomsk. The human rights organization First Department is confident that the repressive campaign is growing and the next victim of the FSB could be absolutely any scientist who has worked on this topic as part of international collaborations.
Within the project "Creators" T-invariant together with RASA (Russian-American Science Association) continues to publish a series of biographical essays about people from Russian Empire, who made a significant contribution to world science and technology. The essay is dedicated to astronomer Alexander Vysotsky. He had worked at the observatory of the University of Virginia. There he compiled the first catalogue of red dwarfs and experimentally confirmed the rotation of our Galaxy.
Three physicists were arrested in so called "Novosibirsk case". It wasn’t the first time. Previously, four scientists were also accused of treason in different years. All of the scientists accused in all these cases participated in the projects of the seventh framework program of the European Union "TransHyBerian" (coordinator — Von Karman Institute of Hydrodynamics, Belgium). However, the interlocutors and sources of T-invariant suggest that the contacts of scientists with China and Iran are only an excuse, not the reason for the arrests.